Out of 288 assembly seats in Maharastra, Shiv Sena has announced to contest on 124 seats while BJP will contest on 164 seats with smaller allies.
The final results of the seat-sharing negotiations came out on Friday with the release of the BJP’s fourth list of candidates after the agreement between the two allies. Maharashtra Chief Minister, Devendra Fadnavis had flown to Mumbai for the event after holding a massive roadshow in Nagpur Southwest. He filed his nomination from the same area.
While addressing a press conference, post the announcement of the fourth list, Fadnavis said that while his party may have differences with the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena on certain issues, they are bound by a “common thread” of Hindutva. He also predicted an unprecedented victory in the upcoming election with this alliance and seat-sharing matrix.
“It doesn’t matter who is the younger or elder brother. What matters is the relationship between brothers,” said Thackeray.
In the last few months, the talks between the two parties hadn’t been smooth. Shiv Sena was hoping for a 50:50 seat-sharing formula, similar to what happened in this year’s Lok Sabha elections. A certain section of the party leaders even pushed for ending the alliance if their demands were not fulfilled.
Maharashtra will go to the polls on October 21 and votes will be counted on October 24. Results will be declared on the same day.
On 288 seats in the state, BJP-Shiv Sena alliance and Congress-Nationalist Congress Party combinations will be competing for power.
BJP and Shiv Sena had ended their alliance in 2014 Maharashtra elections. They got together only after the electorate delivered a split verdict.